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F or years, Istanbul wasn’ t much of a kebab city. That changed rapidly after the second half of the 20th century, when migrants from the southern, eastern and southeastern parts of the country migrated en masse, bringing their grilled specialties with them. With a population of 16 million in a colossal area of 2,000 square miles, there are enclaves representing numerous areas of Türkiye( Turkey) nestled throughout the country’ s largest city, so the potential for discovering a vast array of authentic regional kebabs is practically endless here.
“ Istanbul’ s kebab culture as we know it today did not exist until as late as the 1990s,” says Cemre Torun, an Istanbul-based food writer, editor and academy chair of The
World’ s 50 Best Restaurants.“ Now the kebab scene involves ocakbasıları( grill houses that often serve alcohol) and kebab restaurants found in every neighborhood, offering a wide variety of dishes and catering to all segments and occasions. Obviously, there were kebab restaurants scattered around the city before then,” he adds. But they specialized in regional dishes, he says, mostly owned by families from cities like Urfa, Gaziantep or Adana, and southeastern Anatolia— the region known for its rich kebab culture. However, kebab restaurants were neither as widespread nor as branched out like they are today.
Kebab has been an integral part of culinary culture throughout Türkiye, the Caucasus, Iran, the Levant and the Arab world for centuries. The etymology is likely
From right: A meze of pide, lahmacun, kebab, meatballs, baklava and künefe; kebab seller on the streets of Istanbul Previous pages: Hagia Sophia; chicken kebab wrapped in dürüm wheat flatbread
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